Expensive and inconvenient. Really?

A coffee purveyor from Seattle with great coffee and cool employees, (not to mention any names) gets involved in a business dispute with another company who fails to produce email, among other things. In the discovery process the company argues that the email should not have to be produced because it was not “reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost.” In a world where we use so many great business productivity tools every day, by now all companies should expect to be required to manage the contents and make it available when needed for audits, litigation or investigation. It is too late in the process to be arguing expense and inconvenience when we use the tools everyday to be a more efficient business. Are you kidding me. Of course the court sanctioned the whiners.

Why do we need records?

A hypothetical to ponder: A foreign car manufacturer who creates products that are loved the world over, uncovers that one of its vehicles may have a defect that causes a braking fault. That hypothetical company does not go public with the defect issue as it will cost great money to fix, saying nothing of the bad PR to the otherwise revered company. Sometime later after receiving many complaints and experiencing several disastrous accidents that may be been caused by the alleged defect, the United Stated government commences an investigation. When that investigation happens do you think it will rely on people telling the whole story or records to really piece together what happened and when. Employees get fired, forget, selectively forget, lie, retire, move on and get new jobs. At the center of the alleged problem will be records that will either protect the company or demonstrate there was a problem. So why exactly do we need records anyway? Remember you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Are You Kidding me.

How accurate is feedback?

What is in a statistics? Let me admit that Kahn Consulting has done many surveys over the years and I have analyzed data provided by many companies responding to survey questions. We labored over how to write them to get “useful” feedback. Yet, “at the end of the day”, “in the final analysis”, “after thinking outside the box”, I was left wondering about the veracity of the input—was the respondent “in the know” and did we get “the straight dope”. Loath to be trite, I wonder about stats all the time. For example, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit Report on Information Governance, “…nearly 73% of respondents report that their company’s overall ability to provide access to critical business information when needed is good or very good”. HOGWASH!!!!—I think? I have no way to verify the report or determine independently whether or not the feedback was indeed accurate. I am not being critical of the report, but rather questioning the feedback. Is it true or not? But in the my heart of hearts, it doesn’t feel right. News reports about business failure after business failure remind me daily that managing information is not nearly as good as it should be. Take the Christmas day terrorist bomber for example. Information about the terrorist existed, in various data bases, from various intelligence agencies and units, in various forms, but the dots were not able to be connected. So is it failure or success even if each of the databases “owners” would say that their “overall ability to provide access to critical business information when needed is good or very good”. I am not convinced we are doing very well at governing or managing information. How many exposures of personal identifiable information (PII) do we need to experience before we conclude something is broken. When my gut says something smells fishy I tend to listen. Are You Kidding Me?

Tales From the “Not So Swift” Employee Archive

An employee is on his way to the mailroom. Correction, an employee is on his way to the lunchroom. Correction, an employee is on his way to his cubicle to do some more on-line shopping during lunch as he texts his friend about the hottie sitting next to him in his “borrowed” office cubicle (as he normally works at home). Not surprising he is using his company-provided phone. By the way, his company doesn’t have a mailroom anymore as there is no need and people don’t eat during lunch they shop on-line or troll the internet for a weird You Tube video. Anyway, As our youthful employee gropes the texting keys he runs right into a Stuart, the Big Boss- who falls to the ground, fracturing his ego. Thank goodness the new law against texting while driving doesn’t apply in the halls of the work place. After putting together his phone and helping Stu to his feet he sends a text to a vendor stating “got the revised proposal. It looks good. We would like to move forward asap”. You make the call-- Do you think the company needs A) a doofis policy; B) a records policy applied to every communication device known to mankind or c) a social networking policy? At least B & C and maybe all of the above.
R U Kidding Me.

Come on, look me in the eye.

I am looking for one brave soul who can look me in the eye and tell me that the employees at his/her company are actually doing records retention properly. Correction: I am looking for one brave soul who can look me in the eye and tell me that the employees at his/her company are actually doing records retention. Correction: I am looking for one brave soul who can look me in the eye and tell me that SOME of the employees at his/her company are actually doing records retention. Correction: I am looking for one brave soul who can look me in the eye and tell me that SOME of the employees at his/her company are actually doing records retention ONCE IN A WHILE.
Correction: I am looking for one dreamer who thinks that employees can get records management right. After all, “you can fly if you believe wendy”

It's in there. In the records, that is.

Did you ever hear the old adage-that history repeats itself. According to the Jan 7 Wall Street journal, just recently again another Chinese dairy allegedly tainted its alleged substandard milk with melamine allegedly. Melamine apparently thickens milk (and allegedly kills some people too). It’s great for building products but not great to make substandard milk more healthy. Anyway, it was disclosed that while the Chinese investigated the events for 11 months, they just this week made it all public. We know all this because records tell us so. Remember the last Chinese debacle over melamine tainted milk from 2008. BTW, anyone want to buy some Chinese drywall really cheap? Are You Kidding Me.

Information Determines Our Fate

We live in an information nation. In deed it's almost an information world. And increasingly that information can be used to determine our fate. One case in point is the recent “Christmas Day Bomber” scare. The young man’s dad tells the CIA about the violent proclivities of his son on more than one occasion and worries that he may do something stupid like blow something up including himself. The young man is from a target country that we are concerned about. He has trained and learned radical Islam making him a good candidate to be concerned about. The young man buys a one way ticket. Big Red Flag. He pays cash. Another red flag. The problem was the young man didn’t even make it on the “no fly” list but he did make it on a lower level list. The USA Today story about the failure called it “one database failure after another”. Brilliant.

Are You Kidding Me.